The HN banner idea would only antagonize the HN folks. In my childhood, parents made me eat tomatoes, because, you know, it's healthy. Since then I despise tomatoes, even though at a rational level I understand that my parents were right.
The techies types are knowledge first people. If you want to win their support, appeal to knowledge, make a rational case, but avoid trying to fool them, as the moment they notice a logical inconsistence in your ideas, they'll dismiss them entirely.
Most activism appeals to emotions, to feelings, because it matters a lot to most people. But techies put dry knowledge first and so needs to change your tactic.
Nevertheless, I'm upvoting your comment because I believe it presents an important viewpoint.
The any number of flame wars that techies have (like editor X vs Y, operating system A vs B) should put to rest any assertions of us privileging knowledge over emotions.
The subset of techies you are talking about like to think that about themselves like that. They're as emotional and biased as the rest of us mortals, proof of that for example is characterizing the comment as irrational just because it doesn't "feel" rational to you, other comments talking about feminist re-educations camps or how climate change isn't that big of a deal.
I'm not trying to be antagonistic but one should be careful of thinking that they are inherently a more rational person.
They're biased, but in a different way. Most people are steered by wrong feelings: they feel strongly about something, although don't quite understand it, and act on those feelings. Techies are less suspectible to feelings (they are deaf in some sense), but they often get trapped in mental illusions, i.e. elaborate mental structures and ideas that incorrectly describe the world.
This is also why techies dont make it far in power structures: they don't get that emotional aspect of human relationships.
What if you support the concept that black lives matter but do not support the actions of the organization Black Lives Matter (which is not just about racial equality).
The techies types are knowledge first people. If you want to win their support, appeal to knowledge, make a rational case, but avoid trying to fool them, as the moment they notice a logical inconsistence in your ideas, they'll dismiss them entirely.
Most activism appeals to emotions, to feelings, because it matters a lot to most people. But techies put dry knowledge first and so needs to change your tactic.
Nevertheless, I'm upvoting your comment because I believe it presents an important viewpoint.